


Sun

by QueenIX



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-31
Updated: 2014-03-31
Packaged: 2018-01-17 17:08:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1395820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenIX/pseuds/QueenIX
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nine years after WYLB, Kira prepares to leave the station.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sun

Kira Nerys stepped out of Quarks and onto the Promenade, picking her way carefully around the flotsam on the floor. Bits of food, empty glasses, pieces of paper, and drained-out bottles were all that was left of the party. Less than an hour ago, the Promenade had been packed with people. Now it was a ghost town, fluttering streamers the tumbleweeds, darkened shop fronts the abandoned buildings. Kira tried not to think about the mess, how she should have ordered it removed. Let it all stay there, she thought, as she moved through the square. It seemed to match her current mood.

It had been a great party, even if she'd been in no mood to enjoy it. Though Kira was still relatively young, the age of liking this kind of thing had passed, and endless hours of well-placed smiles and carefully timed laughs, of socializing and speech-making, had left her drained, not to mention distinctly drunk. If she could have, she would have skipped the whole thing. As it had been in her honor, she was obligated to attend. Now, with the party behind her and the station quiet, Kira could finally say the silent, solitary goodbye she had waited for all night.

Kira stopped short at the base of the main stair, brow scrunched in a rare moment of trepidation. High-heeled boots and too many Bajoran ales were a bad combination. It wouldn't do for the station's commander to trip drunkenly down the stairs on her last night in charge, but it was the shortest way to the second level. 

Taking a fortifying breath, she took a careful first step, gripping the rail as she made her ascent. The blur of alcohol set the stairs reeling, and Kira's stomach lurched. _Definitely not as young as you used to be, Nerys._

Kira breathed a huge sigh of reilief as she reached the top, and moved to her usual position _,_ just a few feet from the main stair. Hooking her foot on the guardrail, she leaned forward on her elbows and took a long look from her favorite perch.

She had stood here so many times since her forced assignment to the dreaded Terok Nor, contemplating her life, her job, or whatever thing was on her mind. It was a form of meditation standing here, watching station life play out below, and eased her troubles when she was too restless to do anything else. The girl she was all those years ago, the one that had stood in this very same spot on that first long and lonely night aboard, was certainly restless, to say the least. She had come fresh from the liberation front, the blood and smoke of her resistance years still clinging thickly, still trying to reconcile herself to the Provisional Government's decision to send her to this place. The responsibility of her new title had been a heavy weight she wasn't ready for, had never asked for, and she had almost buckled under the pressure, nearly resigning her commission and running right back to Bajor with her tail between her legs. But she hadn't, and she was glad she hadn't. It would have been the biggest mistake of her life.

Sixteen years on Deep Space 9 had changed her so much. That terrified, rage-filled girl was long gone now, replaced by the woman she had become. Time, and station life, had eased her grief and anger, had taught her patience, banking the fire of her infamous temper to a slow burn. It still lit back up from time to time, but she'd finally learned to master it, to control it, to shut her big mouth and lead. A small smile turned up the corners of her mouth as she traced the pips on her collar. Kira Nerys, a Starfleet captain. Who would have ever thought it?

When the Federation first arrived all those years ago, she'd hated them, deeply, and made sure they knew it. Eventually she had come around, and the friends she'd made had certainly helped, yet a piece of her would never forgive the Federation for their inaction during the Occupation. If it hadn't been a sticking point of keeping command of the station, Kira would have turned the captain's chair down nine years ago, another decision she would have come to regret. There were times, though, that donning the grey jacket and polished boots of her uniform still felt like a betrayal, a promise broken to that feral young woman who once stood overlooking the Promenade on a sleepless night.

Sighing heavily, Kira gave up her perch, easing off the rail and trailing further down the walkway, dragging her thoughts along with her. She paused to look down on Quarks. A soft glow burned though the rippled glass of the doors. The little Ferengi was still in there, despite the hour. Kira could picture him sitting at the empty bar, counting the night's take, wearing his snaggle-toothed grin and rubbing an ear in monetary ecstasy. The party had brought more sales than he'd had in a month, and Kira hadn't seen Quark this happy since that last night, the one after the war, when the original senior staff had gathered in his establishment.

Kira, too, had been happy that long- ago night. She would never, _ever_ , admit it to Quark, but she had spent some of the best times of her life in his bar.

Kira felt a familiar burn as tears threatened, and blamed the amount of alcohol she'd consumed for making her sentimental. She wasn't a big drinker, but she had been unable to refuse the many well-meant toasts and glasses raised to her without being rude, and her current melancholy was making her regret it. She pulled in a deep breath, holding it until the ache in her chest subsided, picturing her disquieted feelings as a gathered ball, then banishing that ball through a long, controlled exhale. It was a monk's technique Bareil had taught her, to be used whenever she felt her control slip. It had gotten her through some tough times.

As she breathed out, she turned her back on Quark's. It was best not to think of those days, and who she missed from them. That technique she'd taught herself.

Kira crossed the walkway to stand at the viewing window. It always reminded her of a great lidless eye, ever open to the vast space that surrounded the station. It was famous, this window. Anyone who visited ended up here at least once, the floor now permanently grooved by the tramping of many feet, so many pilgrims standing right where she was standing, hoping to get a glimpse of the wormhole, and Kira didn't blame them. She had seen it many times, but it never got old. When the gates of the Celestial Temple burst open in their show of light and color, it made her feel closer to the Prophets, and she couldn't help but wish for it now, one last chance to send a prayer to the open ear of her gods.

The captain checked her chronometer, a gift from Shakaar on her last birthday, wondering if anything was scheduled for departure so she could see it one more time. The chronometer read 0330 hours, and her eyes widened in silent shock. There was no chance of that. All docking was done for the night, or not yet started for the day, depending on how one looked at it.

And how did one look at it, she thought, dropping her wrist and looking back out the window. How did one measure a day, in space, where it was always night? It had seemed unreal to her at first, the pseudo-day they rotated their shifts around. How could a day be called a day, with no sun to define it? Out of any window, at any time, there was always dark. It had taken Kira months to adjust to living with constant night, but she had, eventually. She had been here for so long, sometimes she forgot what real sun felt like.

Kira hugged herself against a chill, and had to wonder if one of the little suns beyond the window glass belonged to Trill. Ezri and Julian had moved there three years ago after they learned they were to be parents. Ezri had insisted her first child, at least of this host, be born on her home world, and Julian hadn't objected. He was so besotted with the idea of a little Bashir running around he would have moved to Breen if that's what Ezri wanted. Kira missed them both, but missed Dax a bit more than the dear doctor. There were so many friends gone, but Dax had been her friend the longest. It wasn't fair she had to loose Dax twice. As she gazed at the nameless stars nestled in the velvet black of space, loneliness coiled itself around her, insidious and cold, and Kira longed for the counsel of her wise little friend.

Kira had always viewed Ezri's arrival as a gift from the Prophets, a boon to ease the pain of Jadzia's senseless end in their own temple. Over the years, she often wondered what would have happened if they hadn't sent Ezri to Ben when they did, coaxing him from his grief, back to the station, and back to Bajor. The restoration of Dax to Ben's life, to all their lives, had been like the small stone that starts an avalanche, renewing their purpose and strengthening their resolve to defeat the Dominion. Victory had hinged on one tiny woman, and Kira marveled again at the wisdom of her Prophets.

That last year of the war, the same year that had brought Ezri, had been the worst, both sides atrociously destructive in their race to win. The loss of life had been staggering, a death for every star Kira could count, and beyond that, far beyond. Kira was the only one of the original senior staff still aboard the station, the last reluctant hold-out to those bitter times. All of her friends were gone, buried, or stationed somewhere else in that big, black universe, and she should be glad to be finally leaving Deep Space 9.

But she wasn't.

Kira's recall to Bajor was a disappointment, and it shouldn't have been. It was, after all, a promotion, but she didn't feel ready to give up the station. It was as if she'd left something unfinished, and she couldn't figure out what. The feeling had been plaguing her for weeks. Ops had been prepped for the change in command, and her final orders issued. The office was cleaned out and her quarters emptied, save for two duffels. Tonight's party had given her the chance to bid farewell to literally the entire station. What, then, was left for her to do?

Kira decided it was just nerves, and her answer lied somewhere in why she'd kept this post for so long. Sometimes she thought she had stayed on DS9 just to spit at the Dominion. Kira had never forgotten the acid-tinged words the female Founder had thrown at them as she and the rebels had forced the thing's surrender, words that were a corrosive attempt from the dying to lash out at the living. Kira knew the words were meant for her, even though the Founder had pitched her voice to the room. The Founder's festering hatred had spewed out with each syllable, and her eyes had been on Kira the whole time, from the moment they had broken down the door and Kira had raised her weapon, until the creature had conceded her defeat and ordered her armies to stand down.

Staying on the station had seemed a way to fight those evil words, to keep them from being prophecy, but for the most part, it hadn't worked. Much of what the Founder said had become true, many of the fragile alliances dissolving once the Dominion was gone. As the Alpha Quadrant inventoried the destruction the Dominion had wrought, as they tallied their dead, grief had risen up like a miasma, coating the very fabric of the universe itself, right down to the molecules Kira breathed. The finger-pointing had gone on for years, worlds upon worlds of blame, crossing subspace channels and souring peace conferences, destroying negotiations and ending long-time unions. It often seemed to Kira the war had been for nothing, that the “Solids” learned nothing, just as the Founder had predicted. What, then, had all that sacrifice been for?

Shaking her head, shrugging off her dark thoughts, Kira chided herself for being maudlin. It was never productive, and she wasn't usually prone to this kind of moping. She stretched her arms over her head and noted some of the booze had worn off, her feet firmer beneath her and the deck no longer spinning when she moved. Another check of the chronometer said there was still time to kill before she had to go. Deciding a cup of tea might lift her spirits, Kira descended the stairs, and headed to the replimat.

The consoles and lights were dark, the Promenade in night mode, but that was no matter. Being in charge had its advantages. She voiced her code, overriding the lock-outs to the replicator terminal. The herbal tea she ordered every morning was so routine, it wasn't a thought anymore, and her mouth was open to speak, when the words suddenly didn't feel right. It wasn't tea she wanted, she realized. It was probably all that reminiscing, but she wanted something from her past. Something richer, darker, something she used to love. A thing she hadn't allowed herself in an age.

“One raktajino, hot, two measures of kava,” she stated with a slight quaver.

The beverage assembled in a whirl of patterned light. A piping mug of Klingon coffee sat ready on the tray, but Kira hesitated. She bit her lower lip, considering. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.

Once, raktajino had been her favorite among the many caffeinated options on the replicator menu. It had, in fact, been the most popular beverage on the station, until that first time she'd ordered it after he-

 _No, don't think about that_.

After her last mission to the Gamma quadrant. When it was over, Kira had headed straight to Ops from the runabout, eager to bury her pain in duty. The plan, hatched on the long and lonely return trip, was to drink enough raktajino to power a warp engine, and work well into the night, until she either dropped from exhaustion, or her heart exploded from stimulant overload. Either way, she wouldn't have to think about that mission, and what it had been for.

After docking, she had breezed through Ops, gamely ignoring the swiveling heads and surprised stares of the crew, who obviously didn't expect to see her back on deck so soon. Those assumptive, sympathetic faces triggered the spot in her head that prickled hotly when she felt she was being pitied, like an unscratchable itch, and she had taken it out on the first person that crossed her path.

“ _Get me a raktajino,”_ she'd barked at an ensign as she stomped to her office, “ _and you'd better know how I take it by now.”_

In chipper Starfleet fashion, the girl ( _Smith, her name was Smith_ ) had brought it, and set it down with a 'Can I get you anything else, Colonel?'  Head already bent over backlogged messages, Kira had absently dragged the mug to her side, lifting it to take a sip, and the familiar aroma of Klingon coffee undid her completely. She had thrown her PADD across the room, the face of it cracking as she sob-

Kira halted the rest of that memory. It would take her to a place she didn't want to go. Still, she was being ridiculous, she decided, as she reconsidered the mug. The ensuing breakdown that poor young ensign witnessed had nothing to do with coffee, and besides, that was years ago. Giving up raktajino had been a sensible decision, nothing more. It was just a stupid drink, for Prophet's sake, and since when was she afraid of anything? 

The captain reached out and seized the mug before she lost her will entirely. Keeping the mug at arm's length, she moved to a table and righted a fallen chair. Taking a careful seat, placing her hands to either side of the mug, Kira closed her eyes, and waited.

It wasn't a long wait. The earthy aroma of Klingon coffee filled her senses, and Kira was quickly drenched in memories of _him_ , as she was years ago on the floor of her office. Flashes, bits and pieces, fragments, they all swirled in her head as the scent swirled in her nose. Determined not to repeat the past, to keep her wits this time, she forced herself to slow them down, and examine them, one by one.

An elegant, long-fingered hand offered a piping mug. Those same hands steepled over a thin-lipped mouth as she told her latest tale of woe. Heated arguments that sometimes escalated to shouting matches. Sky blue eyes, brimming with mirth, that met hers over the rim of her cup as he reported occasionally devious but usually hilarious criminal activity. _'I know you edit the uglier things out of those reports before I read them,'_   she'd confessed that night in Jadzia's closet.

A sad but hopeful look, words that were an absolution to her bleeding pagh. “ _Maybe it doesn't have to.”_

Kira risked another inhale, closer this time, steam warming her cheeks with moist heat. More memories came, later ones, from her quarters instead of security. He always insisted on serving her the first cup of the day, bringing it to her in bed, a short time of togetherness before their hectic days began. Kira had savored those mornings like the coffee, slowly and with great relish.

On their last morning, the ritual was kept. As he handed her the coffee, his fingertips brushed hers, lingering a moment too long. A tenderness in the featherlight touch made her glance up. Pain she was never meant to see assaulted her, sadness that carved lines of misery in his smooth brow and laid naked in the crystalline sharpness of his gaze. It spoke directly to the despair welled in her own breast, and she'd howled like a wounded animal, dashing the mug to floor. As it shattered, she threw herself into his-

 _NO!_  

Kira shoved herself away from the mug and her memories, hitting her back on the chair. She gripped the edge of the table until the tendons in her hands screamed with pain, distracting her from the pain her mind was still trying to feed her, cursing herself for her own folly. Raktajino _was_ a bad idea. Hadn't she banned it from Ops for this very reason? 

Making a sound of disgust, Kira stood abruptly, the chair returning to its fallen state. She rushed the mug back to the replicator and slammed it on the tray. She punched the recycle button and watched, a snarl curling her lip, as the machine deconstructed the treasonous brew, and sent it into oblivion.

The tension in her body disappeared with the raktajino, and she listened to her breathing even out in the otherwise silent space. Turning around, leaning against a wall for support, Kira stared into the dark, and thought again it was too bad Ezri wasn't here.

Ezri tried for years to get Kira to talk about her feelings, using all of the tactics in her counselor's arsenal to pry Kira's psyche open, and get to the soft center. Kira had been prepared for her every time, fending off Dax's efforts and successfully keeping herself, to herself. For Kira, talking about the past had always been futile. It was like wading in a serene pool, only to step in a nest of water snakes, a writhing, dangerous mass filled with outrage and venom. If she needed to find something, it would float up on its own, without the risk of getting bitten. Yet on this night, she felt an urge to unburden her feelings, the ones she'd harbored for years that were lurking shades and trailing phantoms, waiting to spring from the most innocent of places. Like cups of coffee.

But it was too late. Erzri wasn't here, and who else would she talk to? She had to deal with this herself. All the ghosts of her past needed to stay here, on the station, if she was really to move on. If she didn't dump them now, they would cling like leeches to the next phase of her life. Her little raktajino test had made that evident. The first step to ridding oneself of a ghost was to raise it, and Kira knew just how. Squaring her shoulders, she stepped down from the raised level of the replimat, and marched across the darkened square.

The massive door of the security office was locked for the night, its blast-proof facade an intimidating barrier against anyone foolish enough to approach. Kira set off the motion sensors as she drew close, waking the Computer.

 _“Warning_ ,” said the flat, feminine voice. “ _Proximity sensors activated. Provide palm scan and state access code. Alarm will sound in seven seconds.”_

Again, not a problem. She placed her hand in the palm scanner. “Kira, Alpha one-zero-six-nine-seven. Computer, override night locks and open doors.” She tilted her chin a little higher as the Computer complied. The door to security rolled back with a hydraulic hiss, revealing the darkened office behind it.

“Computer, lights at half.”

The room beyond lit enough so Kira could make her way without braking her neck, but not much more. She stood on the threshold, fists tightly clenched, and took a deep breath. It was now or never. Kira lifted a booted foot, and stepped into the station's security office for the first time in nine years.

Kira's first thought was that not much had changed. The surveillance monitors, the eyes and ears of station's security operation, were powered down for the night, but small blinking lights said the cameras were still watching. The walls were the same drab Cardassian alloyed metal, the air still redolent with the sting of disinfectant cleaner crossed with the ozone scent of running electronics. It should have been unpleasant, but she found it comforting. Ahead was the desk, bolted to the floor in the same position he'd left it, a little messier than she remembered. The guest chair, though, that was still the same, and she moved to it, smiling.  

Kira ran a hand lovingly over the worn leather, greeting an old friend. She eased into the chair and took a casual posture, balancing a foot on the desk, her air comfortable and territorial. Kira might have been disturbed by the autonomy of said foot, how it seemed to go to the exact place it always had without conscious thought, had she noticed. As it was, she was too busy riding a lofty wave of nostalgia, thinking of how much time she had spent in this chair, in this office, with O...with the station's former security chief.

_Say his name, Nerys. You're in the house that he built, and still you won't say it._

She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. She wouldn't say it. She couldn't. She hadn't spoken his name in years, hadn't even thought it, banishing the two beloved syllables thoroughly from her consciousness. Yet, isn't that why she was here? Wasn't he the ghost she'd come to raise?

Sighing, Kira pulled her foot off the desk, and made herself small in the chair. She had worked so hard to forget him, and calling him back would be costly. There was a time she was sure she would see him again, a time when she'd brimmed with optimism she used like a protective cloak, arming her against the isolation and uncertainty those first years without him had brought. Kira rested her head on her knees, thinking about that long-gone feeling. It had felt so good to have that cloak, and be the woman who wore it.

She recalled a particular evening with Ezri at Quark's. A very handsome and very eligible ambassador had made a pass at Kira, and she'd promptly but politely shot him down. Ezri watched him retreat from their table, an appreciative look tilting her gray-blue eyes. Her expression changed as she turned back to Kira, brow drawn, gaze discerning with what Kira recognized as Dax's 'sciencey' look.

“ _What?”_   Kira asked. Ezri replied by grabbing Kira's wrist across the table. _“What are you doing?”_

“ _Checking for a pulse.”_

“ _A pulse? What for?”_

A hint of Jadzia came in the glib response, in the arch of an elfin brow. _“Because I want to make sure you're still alive.”_

_“....I don't follow.”_

“ _I need to know if I'm having drinks with a corpse. Since you let that_ _one go, I figure you must be dead.”_

Kira snatched her wrist back with a huff. Ezri broke into a full grin, and Kira felt her own mouth quirk into a smile to match. There was a short pause, followed by bursts of helpless laughter, both of them holding their sides and wiping tears, ignoring the bewildered stares of the other patrons of Quark's.

Kira was breathless as she finally managed to speak. _“Oh, Ezri, I needed that.”_

“ _Me, too,_ ” Ezri replied, smile fading as she turned the conversation. _“Seriously, Nerys, don't you think it's time? It's been over a year, and I can, as a medical professional, confirm you're not dead-_

“ _Well that's good news. I was worried.”_

“ _-and I don't think the One Who Shall Not Be Mentioned expected you to spend the rest of your days alone. I know its been hard, but you can't run off every man who looks at you. You can't loose hope.”_

Leave it to Dax to get to the heart of the matter. In this case though, Ezri was wrong. Kira had taken her friend's hand across the table, and given her a reassuring smile.

_“Dax, that's not it at all. It's not because I've lost hope. It's because I haven't.”_

Tears of a different nature had welled in Dax's eyes, and Kira knew a moment of wry triumph. For once, she was the one to drop a bomb of insight.

 _“_ _I see,_ ” Dax managed, clasping Kira's hand even tighter.

After that night, Dax withheld her opinions on Kira's love life, broaching the subject only when Kira did, an uncharacteristic approach she appreciated. Her hope, and her love, were bound up in a twisted mess of intergalactic politics it seemed would never unravel, and talking about it didn't help.

Several attempts were made by the Federation to contact the Founders after the war. Their efforts made minor inroads with outlying planets in the Gamma quadrant, but the Dominion, it seemed, had folded back in on itself. No one had heard from them in years. Ironically, the last Alpha Quadrant citizen to have any contact at all with the Link had been Kira. She tried to rationalize their silence, knowing the idea of peaceful relations with the Solids would be a concept the Link had to digest slowly, carefully. After all, how long had it taken her own people to let go of their mistrust of outsiders?

The years, however, had passed, the silence had endured, and Starfleet had given up. They now sent only one message annually, a prerecorded olive branch offered feebly to the void, and Kira's hope of reunion with her love had wilted with Starfleet's failure.

Slowly, Kira's hope became replaced by a cold and composed kind of numbness she used to obliterate the “One Who Shall Not be Mentioned” from her life. At first, the task seemed impossible, memories dogging her steps, pulling at her with ghostly fingers, encouraging her to stay locked in the past. When it began to affect her work, she had embraced that coldness, held it like weapon. Any remembrance or sentimentality her mind managed to find regarding the station's former security chief were banished with a ruthless mental discipline that would've impressed a Vulcan.

She learned to avoid certain places, and changed the ones she couldn't. Vic's was certainly off limits, the holographic host having too much to say on the subject. She had scoured her quarters, the mementos given away, the furniture replaced. Ops had been exorcised, and the Promenade, lurking specters tightly contained and sent to a place dark and airtight, where she didn't have to see them, ever again. And each day, it grew easier and easier to forget. 

The station's security office, however, had been another matter. His presence was writ here, as far as she could tell, for all eternity, and there was nothing she could do about it, except avoid it. Despite being the station's commander, she had done so for years, and his replacement, Lieutenant Commander Renna Baxan, had been a big help.

The first time Kira had met Renna, it had been in the security office. Kira had business on Bajor, and had missed Renna's first week on the station. Bracing herself on the turbolift ride from the docking ring, knowing she had no choice but to go, do her job, and meet her new security chief, Kira had carefully schooled her features into a competent, commanding mask. She checked her reflection before getting off the lift, pleased. Nothing of her inner turmoil showed.

Feeling prepared, Kira had walked into security, hand extended the Starfleet way to introduce herself, and Baxan had immediately recoiled.

“ _Did I do something wrong?”_

“ _No, no....I'm sorry, Captain. It's my fault. I wasn't ready.”_

_“Well, I know my reputation precedes me, but I'm not that bad.”_

_“It's_ _not that. I'm part Betazoid, and I usually have that part tuned down, but I just finished an interrogation. It takes some time to shut it off. You caught me off guard, that's all.”_

“ _Off guard from what, Lieutenant?”_

“ _From your feelings. When you approached, they were very strong, very sad...It was a shock. Like being punched. Actually, I still feel it...Can we step outside, please? I get the sense it's something with this room.”_

Standing on the Promenade that day, she and Renna had made a tacit agreement that henceforth, they would meet elsewhere. Renna learned why the security office bothered Kira so much, but it didn't really take a Betazoid to figure it out. Luckily, Renna had turned out to be more than competent in her role, leaving no need for Kira to personally oversee operations in security. Kira knew Starfleet would be appalled by the latitude she had allowed the Lieutenant, but Kira knew her business. There were other ways she kept tabs on her chief of security, and Renna had proven herself many times to be worthy of Kira's trust, becoming another friend in her life.

Kira groaned into her knees, laughing at herself _. Prophets, Nerys. What is it with you and security chiefs?_

Renna's predecessor had held Kira's trust from the start. In return, he had given her so much of himself, far more than he gave anyone else, and she had been stubbornly slow to recognize what an incredible gift it was. She pretended for years not to see the torch he carried for her, like a light to guide her home, and she denied her heart's secret wish to follow it, delaying their relationship from full development for far too long, and for what? In the end, none of her objections had held up. They were shown to be insubstantial things, brittle shells around empty centers, easily crushed and composed mainly of fear; of the uncertain, of the alien, and in the end, of her own passion.

Part of her must have known all along how it would end, and had tried to protect the rest from being where she was now- alone, heartbroken, and bereft of her other half. Not once since he'd gone had Kira felt as easy in her own skin. It was impossible that she should meet another who could make her as complete. The universe couldn't be that kind twice, but sitting in security curled into a ball wasn't going to change any of it.

Kira uncurled from her sheltering posture and stood. It was time she called out to this last specter of her past.

“Odo," she breathed to the stillness.

As if speaking his name to the dark was some kind of summon, he was there, hip pressed warmly into her backside, arm circling her waist, pulling her close. A hand smoothed up her arm, and she shivered, bracing herself against the onslaught of physical memory. _Not real,_ _Nerys, not real_ , her mind shouted, but the rest of her ignored it as nine years of repression took their revenge.

Odo's body had been so warm, and her skin had not forgotten the relief of it, chasing away the chill of space and raising goosebumps on her pale flesh. They rose now as illusion caressed her neck, as memory traced her jaw. She tipped her head back against a shoulder that wasn't there. She even felt the slight vibration of his substance as he held a solid form. It was so alive, that vibration, so uniquely him, like a scent would be from someone else. How long had it been since she allowed herself to think of it? Kira let the phantom thrum travel through her limbs, out to her fingertips, as it had the countless times he'd held her like this, electric, enticing, distinctly erotic, and she shuddered, squeezing her eyes shut against remembered ecstasy.

It was as if Odo was really with her, still at her back and protecting her while she protected everyone else. Prophets, how she missed him, and for the first time since he left, let it wash fully through her. Grief flooded her heart, filled it full, and she began to breathe in short pants that quickly gave way to silent sobs she smothered behind a trembling hand. Not once in the years since Odo left had she let herself _feel_ , not like this, and the part of her mind she would never listen to, the part that plagued her sleepless nights, the part that had been caged in silence finally had its say.

_You always thought he'd come back for you. You are such a fool._

It was her undoing, that voice. Her legs jellied, and she slid to floor as she poured bitter tears. She wept grandly, fully, in the way she had always wanted and always denied, grief no longer dammed behind a wall of duty and obligation. This was why she couldn't leave, why she couldn't give up the station. It wasn't Sisko, or the Bashirs, or even her patriotism. It was always the fruitless hope that somehow Odo would return, and she wanted to be here, waiting for him. _Stupid, stupid stupid_ , she chided herself, punctuating the floor with a fist.

As Kira shed her angry tears, she asked herself why this was the one loss that she couldn't surpass. She had been through so much, through occupation, destitution, through abuse and rape. She had watched Bareil die horribly, had been the target of assassinations and vendettas, had even lost her family. Not once, not ever, had she held the kind of dangerous hope that had kept her in this prison of her own making.

The thought stopped her short, ceasing her wailing abruptly. Since when had she thought of her station as a prison? DS9 was her home, wasn't it? Looking around at the Cardassian influenced space, reality struck her. This wasn't her home, and never had been. This place she'd held on to was some kind of self-inflicted purgatory that she filled with achievements and promotions and duty in order to fill the emptiness in her heart, emptiness she had created by trying to destroy the best part of it.

Kira wiped her face and closed her eyes, leaning against the cool surface of the desk. Odo didn't deserve what she had done, and neither did she. That black, atrophied part of her, the part that had festered under her breast all these long years, fed by loneliness, by grief and loss, was excised. Her ties to this place were severed. If Odo wasn't coming back, and she knew, had known all along he wasn't, what was left for her here? She belonged on Bajor, the place she had fought for in the resistance, the place that was her birthright, soaked with the sacrificial blood of her people so that one like her could live in the light, not on some cold Cardassian relic, rotting away in the dark.

Kira had seen enough of night. She longed for the sun, and it was high time she went home.

“Kira? Are you alright?”

Her head jerked up at the sound of the deep alto voice. “Baxan...You startled me. What time is it?”

“Oh-five hundred. Shouldn't you be heading for the airlock? Your transport leaves in ten minutes.”

Kira held out a hand and let Baxan help her up. “Yes,” she said dusting off her clothes, “I should be.” She paused for a moment, and then impulsively seized Baxan in a bear hug, the security chief grabbing the back of a chair for balance. “I'll miss you, Renna. Take care of yourself.”

“I'll miss you too, Nerys," Renna replied, returning the embrace. "You'd better run, or you won't make it.”

With a last squeeze, Kira let go of Renna, and took her advice. She ran faster than she had in years, making her way on fleet feet through the station, and to her quarters. As she retrieved the two duffels from her rooms, she paused at the door to take a final look. The rooms seemed enormous emptied of her possessions. It should have made her sad, but it didn't. Instead, it seemed like a new beginning, and she couldn't wait to start.

She turned away from her quarters, and dashed headlong through the corridors, bags crossed over her chest, bobbing off her hips as she ran. She was grinning like a madwoman, and felt just as free. Arriving breathless at the airlock, Kira hopped over the threshold. The doors of the transport slid shut, and the hair on the back of her neck bristled as the engines spun up for the run to Bajor. Finally, Kira Nerys was on her way home, and on her way to the rest of her life.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Based in characters belonging to Paramount. The characters are theirs, the story is mine.


End file.
